Photo: Red Bull Content Pool
Max Verstappen started the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix with a dominant performance, as he led home team-mate Sergio Perez to give Red Bull their first ever 1-2 to start the year.
The Dutch driver looked largely untroubled but for a minor downshift issue, which he coped with well enough to win the race by over 38 seconds to the nearest non-Red Bull car.
The two-time defending World Champion got a nice launch off the line. Charles Leclerc jumped his teammate Sergio Perez at the start, and this allowed Verstappen to pull away easily in the opening stint. It was a lead he would never lose.
Speaking after the race he said: “It was a very good first stint where I made my gap and from there it was just looking after the tyres.
“You never really know what is going to happen later on in the race so we wanted to have the right tyres in good condition as well.”
The chequered flag helped Verstappen to an eighth consecutive season with a win, as said he was ‘very happy’ to secure a first ever win in Bahrain.
He shared his appreciation for those back in Milton Keynes who have worked incredibly hard over the winter to deliver a car capable of leading from the front, as he said;
“We have a good race package. We can definitely fight with this car and also big thank you to the team, over the winter, to get us a quick race car again.
”This is exactly what we were dreaming of and what we wanted to achieve, so yeah, great day for the whole team,” he said.
“It has been a great start for us, for the whole team, so this is not something we are used to. We are very happy at the moment, but we always keep working.”
